Curt Smith: Nothing left for Republicans to lose

Friday

“What separates the men from the boys is that men enter politics to do something,” an adage says. “Boys enter it to be someone.”

“What separates the men from the boys is that men enter politics to do something,” an adage says. “Boys enter it to be someone.”

By that yardstick, today’s Republican Party is about 5. The GOP once thought politics a means to limited government, traditional values and American exceptionalism. Entering 2009, it deems politics a corrupt, narrow end.

In Albany, Republicans have lost the governorship, lieutenant governorship, attorney general, comptroller, Assembly, and now Senate. In Washington, the GOP has added the presidency to Senate and House of Representatives: all gone, like its spine.

Good news: Like the drunk forced to eye a mirror, Republicans have hit bottom, losing everything there is to lose. Bad news: The GOP has forgotten how to win: power used to do good, like men; not well, like boys.

I dislike people who crow, “I told you so.” This once, forgive. In 2003, I wrote: “George W. Bush’s party is driving off the cliff.” 2004: “It acts like Ronald Reagan was never born — and Nelson Rockefeller never died.” 2006: “Whatever W. touches, his Reverse Midas Touch destroys.” I — we — told the GOP so. Never listening, it never heard our wail against waste, a toxic culture and maniacal tax and spend.

A decade ago, Monroe County party chair Steve Minarik called himself a “Reagan Republican.” He was — Ron Reagan: like Bush, proving the acorn can fall a universe from the tree. Two years later, GOP fundraiser Irene Matichyn and I appeared on television. “You’re not a good Republican,” she blustered of my attacking those who ignore Mid-America. I didn’t leave the GOP, I replied. It left me.

Circa 2003. Minarik wonders: “When are you going to stop criticizing our Republican governor.” My response: “When he starts acting like a Republican.” (George Pataki never did). A year later, Rochester’s WXXI-TV then-commentator Mike Caputo took me aside. “They hate you,” he said of the local GOP. Pause. “Truly hate you.” In Upstate, like Washington, middle-class betrayal lay all around.

Local builders like David Flaum raise millions for arguably America’s worst-ever president.

RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) backed Pataki’s pardon of dirty-speech king Lenny Bruce.

All helped him match Mario Cuomo’s spending blitz: power as end, not means. What kind of me-too GOP would snub its own electorate: laborer, home-schooler, oppressed small businessman? “Hollow men … stuffed men,” said T.S. Eliot, “headpiece filled with straw.”

In Albany, Republicans treat government like a plaything for the privileged. In Washington, they evoke Winston Churchill’s “An empty cab drove up, and Clement Atlee got out.” Bush’s approval rating is an all-time low 22 percent. Seventy-nine percent say they “won’t miss him.” W. is said to worry about his legacy. He should.

In the movie “Body Heat,” Ted Danson tells William Hurt, “You’ll screw up. It’s your nature.” Bush’s was to start two wars, treat border security like a joke, double the federal deficit and spin Wall Street’s $1 trillion bailout. A century from now people will marvel that we elected such a clod.

Incredibly, a few enablers still defend W.’s indefensibility. Most now merely hope to forget his name. All “screw(ed) up” historically. Each helped incinerate the party of Lincoln, Ike and
Reagan.

I told them so, like The Voter did, last month saying, “Don’t ever do this to us again.” What remains is a pygmy clique, ditching introspection for denial. Boys, men. Someone, something. For Republicans, 2008 was wretched. The new year may be worse.

Curt Smith is a former speechwriter to President George H.W. Bush, and host of WXXI Radio’s
Perspectives. Mr. Smith writes twice monthly for Messenger Post Newspapers. E-mail Smith at curtsmith@netacc.net.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.